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<!-- The sicilian conflict was an armed conflict between the Voluntary Army for the Independence of Sicily and the government of Italy.

Prelude
Sicilian nationalism has ancient roots that go back to the revolt of the Sicilians of Ducetius in the 5th century BC. But the true form of independence came during the Romanticism with the Sicilian Vespers, a rebellion that began on March 30, 1282 and ended on May 22 of the same year in which the Sicilian rebels drove out the foreign invaders, at the time the French. After Vespers, there were other revolts to maintain independence, like the anti-Bourbon revolts of 1820 and 1848, the first ended with a defeat, the second instead ended with a victory which was in vain since the island was later reconquered. The Sicilian separatists also supported Garibaldi's expedition of the thousand in 1860 to ``get rid of the Bourbons'', regretting it and thus starting some anti-Italian revolts, the most violent was the seven and a half revolt in which more than a thousand rioters and civilians lost their lives.

Start of the conflict
The EVIS (Esèrcitu Vuluntariu ppi la Nnipinnenza di la Sicilia, in sicilian) was founded on february 1945 at Catania after the decision on November 2, during a congress of the MIS, to use armed struggle to achieve independence. The army was initially formed by about 50 volunteers led by Antonio Canepa.

The conflict
On June 17, 1945 there was a shooting between EVIS and the carabinieri, in the firefight Antonio Canepa and two other guerrillas died. After Canepa's death, Attilio Castrogiovanni took command and, after his arrest, Concepts Gallo, who hired Salvatore Giuliano's band to lead the guerrilla warfare. Calogero Vizzini, a well-known mafia boss who helped the allies in landing on the island, supported the struggle (understanding that by supporting the separatist cause he would have obtained numerous public offices and advantages from which he could easily carry out illicit activities) by hiring the Niscemese gang. commanded by Rosario Avila and Salvatore Rizzo. On September 16, 1944, while a meeting was held in Villalba by Girolamo Li Causi, exponent of the PCI, an attack carried out by the men of Vizzini with the launch of some bombs caused 14 injuries, including Li Causi himself and local activist Michele Pantaleone, historical enemy of Calogero Vizzini. On 26 December 1945 the Bellolampo carabinieri barracks were attacked by Giuliano's gang, who devastated it.On 29 December 1945 a violent battle took place between the guerrillas, about 60, led by Concepts Gallo and the Carabinieri, about 3,000, led instead by Rosario Fiumara, which ended with 3 dead and 10+ wounded. The battle, won by the Italian troops, marked the end of the Sicilian separatist ambitions but gave impetus to a process of granting large forms of autonomy to Sicily by the Italian institutions. In 1946, the MIS decided to enter the law and participate in the elections for the Constituent Assembly of the Italian Republic. Separatism decreased with the recognition of the Sicilian special statute granted by King Umberto II to the island in May 1946, 17 days before the institutional referendum of June 2 that will transform Italy into a Republic, and became an integral part of the Italian Constitution (constitutional law n . 2 of February 26, 1948). With the 1946 amnesty for political crimes, the separatists left Giuliano's gang. Giuliano, however, continued to lead the guerrilla warfare.

The struggle continues
In January 1947, the bandit Giuliano organized an interview with an American journalist in which he entrusted a letter to the journalist that was intended for President Truman to ask for Sicily to enter the US promising to eliminate communism on the island. The bandit also made deals with the Cosa Nostra for his support. On 1 May 1947, hundreds of mostly poor peasants gathered at Portella della Ginestra, three kilometers from the town of Piana degli Albanesi on the way to San Giuseppe Jato for the traditional international Labour Day parade. At 10:15, the Communist party secretary from Piana degli Albanesi began to address the crowd when gunfire broke out. It was later determined that machine guns had been fired from the surrounding hills, as well as by men on horseback. 14 people were killed, including four children, and 24 were injured. The Giuliano's gang was the perpetrator of this massacre. A month later there were attacks with machine guns and hand grenades against the headquarters of the PCI, there were a total of one dead and a dozen injured. After the victory of the anti-communists in the 1948 elections (victory granted through an agreement between the mafia and politics) there was no amnesty to the bandits that Cosa Nostra promised to Giuliano's gang. The bandits thus entered into conflict with the Cosa Nostra killing 5 mafiosi, including a leader. On July 5, 1950, the twenty-seven-year-old Giuliano was found dead in the courtyard of the house of a lawyer in Castelvetrano: a press release from the Banditry Repression Force Officially announced that he had been killed in a firefight the previous night with a police department employed by the Captain Antonio Perenze, an officer of Colonel Luca. However, there were immediately several inconsistencies, thus creating different hypotheses on the death of the bandit, the most accredited one affirms that it was Gaspare Pisciotta, cousin and right arm of the bandit, who killed him. After the bandit's death, the conflict ceased. -->